


Five Times Tony Almost Tells Pepper He Loves Her (And One Time He Finally Does)

by lady_romanov



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: 5+1 Things, Domestic Fluff, Drabble Sequence, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Insecurity, Light Angst, Love Confessions, Mild Sexual Content, Schmoop, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:13:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22785430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_romanov/pseuds/lady_romanov
Summary: He pulls her closer, always closer, inhaling the warm scent of her skin. He'll tell her tomorrow.
Relationships: Pepper Potts/Tony Stark
Comments: 8
Kudos: 48





	Five Times Tony Almost Tells Pepper He Loves Her (And One Time He Finally Does)

**Author's Note:**

> Tbh, I'm not quite sure what this is. Found it when I was looking through my old works for inspiration, cleaned it up a bit, and decided to post it. I've been shipping these two like crazy since the first Iron Man movie came out. Please excuse all bad grammar and run-on sentences. If there's any glaring issue, let me know. Takes place some time between IM2 and the Avengers.

i.

The first time he almost says it, they’re in bed, having sex, or maybe it’s just after. It’s a lazy morning, no hurry in it, just warmth and touch and a slow, gentle rise. She stayed over last night, something she’d been doing more and more often lately, and they’d had a lovely dinner date at a tiny hole-in-the-wall diner that served the best stroganoff on Earth, and afterward he’d taken her home and peeled off her pretty blue dressed and kissed every freckle on her body, twice, and then this morning he’d woken her up with a kiss, suddenly insatiable for her touch and unable to let her sleep any longer with the want bubbling up under his skin, and he’d trailing his mouth down her body, tracing every curve and valley and plane of her body, making her come twice with his mouth before she’d pulled him up by his hair and wrapped one impossibly long leg around his hips and taking him inside her, a sweet, perfect slide into the perfect heat of her body, and they’d rocked together, unhurried, for what felt like hours, kissing and humming and touching each other with reverent hands.

And now they’re just laying there, enjoying a rare morning when neither of them has to run off for whatever business, and he wants to say, _Stay forever._ He wants to say, _You’re the most beautiful thing first thing in the morning even with your messy hair and morning breath_. He wants to say, _I love you, and that scares me._

Instead he says, muffled against her lips, _Breakfast?_ and she laughs against him, into him, and he knows he’ll never come close to deserving this.

ii.

The second time he almost says it, they’re at a gala he absolutely did not want to attend but she insisted was important, and she looks more beautiful than ever (that’s a lie, but only a little – he prefers her in the morning, just waking, still soft from sleep and golden in the morning light) in her deep pink dress and killer heels. She spends the night tucked against his side, warm and familiar, helpfully reminding him of everyone’s name as they talk business with every influential person in the western United States, and every time someone makes a smart comment she leans up and brushes her mouth against the shell of his ear and whispers the most scathing jokes about which Senator looks like a inbred horse and which industry tycoon is obviously paying for his date.

Instead of being miserable, he spends the night laughing, trading jibes, and when he leads her on to the dance floor and her eyes sparkle in the light, he wants to say, _You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me._ He wants to say, _I’m terrified you’re going to realize you can do better than me and leave._ He wants to say, _I love you_ , but not here, he can’t do it here, not when he’s wearing his public persona, not when they’re being watched by every reporter in the room. But he wants to say it. He does.

He does.

iii.

It’s a Bad Day, the third time he almost says it, but not for him. No, it’s Pepper who falls apart this time, after she learns about the death of an old friend she’d gone to school with. _She had cancer,_ she tells him, _we knew it was coming, but, but, but,_ and then spends most of an hour crying into his chest, tears and snot making a mess of his favorite Led Zeppelin t-shirt. He strokes her hair and murmurs gentle things, letting her cry it out, until she finally subsides. The words come to him, _I love you, I love you,_ but they won’t come out.

It’s selfish, but he doesn’t want it to be like this the first time he says it; he wants it to be on a day of only happy things – he wants it to make her smile, not to keep her from crying.

He wants to say, _I love you,_ but instead he says, _I’m sorry, honey, I’m really sorry._

iv.

The fourth time he almost says it, they’re in her childhood home in Maine, and he’s meeting her family for the first time. There’s a lot of them, almost too many to keep track of, and he’s pretty sure the kids are multiplying every time he looks away, but whatever. He’s never had much experience with family, but Pepper makes it look easy, weaving in and out of relatives, kissing and hugging and exchanging _How have you been_ s _?_ as he trails after her, for the first time the awkward hanger-on.

There’s something a bit magical about seeing the house she grew up in, about sleeping in the best she slept in for most of her adolescence, still covered in a soft peach-colored throw, the walls a soft lilac. Her parents are exactly as he imagined them, lovely and in love and so very loving, and they welcome him with open arms and kind smiles. Maine is cold, but this is the warmest place he has ever been.

When he lays beside her in that old bed that night, he almost says it. The words are there, but they stick in his throat, they won’t come out, and so instead he pulls her closer, always closer, inhaling the warm scent of her skin.

He’ll tell her tomorrow.

v.

It doesn’t happen tomorrow, or the next day.

The next time he almost tells her is a full two months later, back in California, after a mission goes wrong and lands him in the Emergency Room, half of his suit torn apart, blood in his and in his throat, his chest battered in after an explosion he didn’t escape in time.

She meets him in the hospital as they’re wheeling him to the O.R., and she’s sobbing and clutching his uninjured hand, saying _Tony, Tony, oh God,_ and tries to say it, in case he won’t get another chance, he tries to say it, _I love you, I love you!_ , but his head is swimming and the light is fading and he can’t say it but he wants to, he wants to, he wants –

+1.

The first time he tells her is something like forty hours later, after the surgeon’s finish putting him back together like Humpty Dumpty. He wakes up slowly, head fuzzy, the world coming into focus in bits and pieces. She’s sitting at his side, looking like a mess, looking beautiful, and he’s willing to bet she hasn’t left the hospital once since she arrived. She’s here, like she always is, and he’s starting to realize that if he’s lucky, if he plays his cards right, she always will be.

So when he says, _I love you_ , the words come from his soul, his bones, his heart, his blood, all of him, who loves all of her. He watches, strangely calm, as her eyes widen, as her breath hitches, as she leans forward to touch his face so gently, like she’s afraid he’s going to break. And he says it again, he says, _I love you, Pepper, I love you, I tried to say it before but I couldn’t, I love you so much,_ and she rests her head against his and whispers back, _Tony, Tony, Tony. I love you, too. Please don’t ever scare me like that again._

He says, _Yes, Ma’am_ and _I love you_ and _Will that be all, Miss Potts?_

She laughs and laughs and says, _Yes, yes. I love you, too, Tony. I love you, too._

**Author's Note:**

> Fuck Endgame, btw. I will forever be salty af about these two not getting the happy ending they deserved. I mean if anyone deserves a goddamn soft epilogue, it's these two.


End file.
